


Lítost

by NinjaWieldingLimes



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Suffering, Established Relationship, F/M, No Shepard without Vakarian, Paragon Commander Shepard, Post-Destruction Ending, Post-War, Shepard Survives, Short One Shot, domestic life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-26 20:19:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6254449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinjaWieldingLimes/pseuds/NinjaWieldingLimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Czech) lítost [li-tɔst] - a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery</p><p>Shepard and Garrus are both emotionally raw and conflicted after Shepard loses the use of her legs during the Reaper War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lítost

**Author's Note:**

> A few days after I finished my second playthrough of the Mass Effect series, I wrote this, and then promptly forgot about it. And now, exactly two years later, I present it unto you.

"Y'know what I miss the most?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I miss you tickling my feet.”  
  
“You hated it when I tickled your feet.”  
  
An exasperated sigh. A short silence.“I'm not dead, Garrus.”  
  
Garrus locked his gaze on his clasped hands. He shifted uncomfortably on the edge of the bed that he and Jolene shared. It had been only a couple of months since she'd woken up for the first time lucid and alert, and only one week since she'd been allowed to leave the hospital. If she'd had her way, Shepard would have been out much sooner. Garrus's mandibles briefly flared as he remembered the futile attempts at persuading Dr. Chakwas to let her out. But when the doctor got reassigned to an emergency relief vessel, the Commander's anger shifted to less experienced medical personnel. Those arguments occurred every day for that whole week (with varying degrees of sedation throughout) and soon enough the Commander got her way.  
Garrus dragged his eyes away from his hands, and up to his girlfriend's stern expression.  
  
“I'm not dead,” she repeated. “You used the past tense. 'Hated.'”  
  
“I didn't mean to.” And he hadn't. But the past tense was all he'd been surrounded with for the better part of a year. Everyone had talked about how it was unlikely that the Normandy would ever fly again, and weren't those some amazing adventures we'd had, back in the good old days. And then it was all talk of how the mass relays would likely never be rebuilt, and man, wasn't life great before the Reapers destroyed everything. And then Commander Jolene Shepard, the best humanity had to offer, saviour of the galaxy, would probably never wake up again. Wasn't she just the best commanding officer you'd ever had? And everyone had planned what they were going to say at the funeral. Liara, Tali, even Jo's mother had spoken of her as if she were already dead. Her own mother, fuck's sake.  
  
If Shepard stopped her treatment completely, she might never regain the use of her legs. Modern medicine was an amazing thing, but the human body had its limits, especially where injuries to the lower spine were concerned. But that was precisely what Shepard did: she stopped hospital treatment, taking only the most crucial medications, and she'd expertly dodge the question when people asked her why. And Garrus was bitter about it.  
  
The chair's wheels squeaked as Shepard pushed them. Garrus made a mental note to do some maintenance on them later. His gaze returned to his hands, until he felt the soft pressure of Jo's finger lifting his chin up. Garrus closed his eyes for a brief moment before making eye contact. He still wasn't used to the fact that Shepard's hair was no longer pulled back into a ponytail. It was too short for that. Parts of her hair now occasionally flopped in a funny way that would almost cover her eyes. Shepard absentmindedly brushed her dark brown hair back with her fingers to reveal that she had moved her eyebrows (consciously or unconsciously, Garrus wasn't sure) so that there was a crease in between them, just above the bridge of her nose. Despite knowing every inch of her body like the back of his hand, Garrus was still a little fuzzy on what that crease meant. It seemed to mean so many things at once sometimes.  
  
“I love you, Garrus.”  
  
“I love you too, Jo.”  
  
“I might be able to regain some mobility eventually. There's still the chance that the pause in the treatment will have no effect.”  
  
“It's a pretty small chance.”  
  
Shepard's lips pressed together into a thin line for a second. “Why are you angry with me?”  
  
“I'm not.”  
  
“I think you're lying.”  
  
“I promise, I'm not angry with you!”  
  
“Yeah, but you are at least a little bit pissed.”  
  
“Spirits, Jo, I swear I am not pissed at you.”  
  
“But you're pissed at the decision I made? Losing mobility is hardly the end of the world.”  
  
Garrus sighed as he gently placed his hand on Shepard's knee, even though he knew she couldn't feel it. One of the things that he loved about Jolene was her ability to get right to the heart of the problem. It was also one of her most annoying traits. “I just don't understand why you would stop your treatment so  _suddenly_. You didn't even talk about it with anyone. I know you don't like hospitals, and that keeping your treatment going would only keep you there longer, but damn it, Jo, that was a dumb decision.”  
  
“I know.” She'd barely whispered it. There was a subtle change in her facial expression, like she'd been slapped in the face, and Garrus wasn't even sure she knew that she'd spoken out loud until she continued, murmuring, “There are so few resources right now. Other people needed beds.”  
  
“Shepard,” Garrus heard his voice drop, his subharmonics rumbling in his throat, “I know you're the self-sacrificing paragon of the galaxy, but even for you...” Garrus trailed off as Shepard wheeled her chair back a bit and towards the door to the hallway.  
  
“Man, I'm starving,” she said with nonchalance. “I'm thinking pizza. What should I order you?”  
  
Shepard glanced back over her shoulder at Garrus, who got up from the bed and stretched his arms. “I think I'll see what's in the refrigerator.”  
  
While Shepard ordered her pizza, Garrus started to gather together something resembling a meal. Turian-appropriate foods were scarce on earth, and they were mostly restricted to preserved foods like military rations. But with the recent repair of several mass relays close to turian colonies, Garrus had managed to scrounge up some decent steak.  
Just as the steak was starting to brown properly, Garrus heard the squeaking of wheels behind him. He flipped the steak and glanced behind him. Jolene was smiling, but the smile seemed too wide, too forced. It was fairly obvious that she was still bothered about their discussion, and that she knew he was more bothered than he was letting on. Garrus flicked his mandibles in an attempt at a cheerful response, and went back to his steak. The apartment was too quiet, and Garrus wanted Jolene to say something.  
  
As if on queue, Garrus heard the squeaking of the wheelchair again. Shortly after, some music came on that he'd never heard before. It was upbeat and fast, with what sounded like brass instruments and percussion, but the audio quality was awful. His steak was almost done to perfection (rare steak was the best steak), so Garrus took the pan off the burner, turned off the stove, and walked quietly into the living room. Jolene was dancing. She spun the wheels of the chair back and forth, sometimes spinning the chair in circles. It was probably the best dancing she'd ever done, and Garrus was thoroughly content to lean against the door frame and watch Shepard dance. As the song ended with a grand finish, Shepard spun her chair to face Garrus, and she threw her arms out and shook her hands rapidly, a genuine smile on her face. Garrus couldn't help but flare his mandibles in a real turian grin, and he clapped his hands as he made his way over to the couch and sat down.  
“What kind of music was that?” he asked.  
  
“It's called bebop.”  
  
“I've never heard it before. Is it as old as classical music?”  
  
“No, no it's not, that song was first performed in the 1940s.”  
  
“Earth years?”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
Garrus grasped Shepard's hand. “You must really like bebop.”  
  
“I do.” Shepard squeezed Garrus's hand in return. “I uh... when I was a teenager I took jazz dance classes. I was okay at it. I could move my feet really quickly. I can't really dance to anything else.”  
  
Garrus was taken aback. He almost laughed, but then he noticed that Shepard's eyes were waterier than normal. “I deserved this.” Shepard's voice sounded thick, and a little higher pitched.  
  
Garrus immediately scooped Shepard up and out of her chair and sat her in his lap. He touched his forehead to her hair and kissed it. He hugged her close as she started sobbing, each inhale stuttering and broken. “I fucked up, I fucked up so bad. It's been almost a year and everything's still... Jack's dead, Anderson's dead, EDI's dead, all the geth are dead. I killed EDI. I committed fucking genocide, Garrus.”  
  
“This isn't your fault, Jo,” Garrus said quietly.  
  
“I made the choice. It was my call and I made the wrong one. Everyone else deserves a bed more than I do.”  
  
Garrus fell silent, and so did Shepard. For a long time there was a tense silence as Garrus held his girlfriend in his lap, gently rocking her, the same way his mother had done when he'd come home from school with a bloody nose and a sprained wrist. But Garrus knew that this was a bigger problem than schoolyard politics, and not one likely to be made better so easily.  
  
“Damn, Vakarian,” Shepard said with a soft chuckle, wiping tears off her cheeks, “I'm a hot mess, aren't I?”  
  
“Yeah, well you're my hot mess,” Garrus replied as he kissed her forehead again and helped her back into the wheelchair. “Come on, my dinner's getting cold.”

  
The pizza arrived when Garrus was about half way through his steak. He'd always been of the opinion that even though it didn't smell the same to him as it did to Shepard, and even though he'd been disgusted when he found out where the cheese came from, there was a certain aesthetic appeal to the food. Or maybe he just liked seeing his girlfriend happy at the prospect of eating one of her favourite foods on the planet where it had been invented. Either way, Garrus liked pizza, even though he couldn't eat it.  
  
As Shepard took a bite of the pizza, Garrus spoke up. “Did I ever tell you much about my mom?”  
  
Shepard shook her head no with her hand covering her mouth almost daintily, even though she wasn't saying anything.  
  
“Mom was involved with the Relay 314 Incident. Or, uh, the First Contact War. Sorry. I mean... shit, I...” Garrus folded his hands together again and stared at them as he continued. “Anyway, she was working on the ship that actually made first contact with that human colonist ship. She received the first transmission.”  
Shepard had stopped eating, the pizza on the plate, her hands clasped in front of her. Garrus kept speaking, knowing that if he stopped, he'd stumble over his words again.  
“For as long as I can remember, my mother would take one evening every two weeks, and just go off somewhere. When I was a little kid it didn't really matter to me, because it meant that it'd be just me and Dad at home, or just me and my sister. When I got a little older, I was kind of curious about where she was going, but it still wasn't a big deal. I didn't find out until a couple of years after I'd started working at C-Sec, and I was talking with my supervisor, that she'd been going to a support group for war veterans. They'd even had the same therapist. I guess...I mean...war leaves everyone scarred. We do what we can to survive and help the ones we love survive, even if that means having to make a shitty choice.  
"So...I guess I'm just trying to say that it's okay to get help and heal, even if it takes a long time. And nobody's blaming you for what happened. And it's not healthy for you to take out your anger on yourself. That's never okay. You don't deserve the punishment you're giving yourself, sweetheart.”  
  
Shepard was leaning heavily on the table, her face in her hands. Her hair had shifted again to where it seemed to naturally want to go.  
  
“I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up again today... I just needed to-”  
  
Shepard took one of Garrus's hands in her own, but she didn't look at him. She used her other hand to push her hair back. “I do love you.”  
  
“I love you too.”  
  
“It's a bit soon, you know, for me.”  
  
“I know. I'm sorry. I keep forgetting that it's sooner for you than for me.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
There was another long silence. Shepard squeezed Garrus' hand, and he squeezed back.  
  
“Garrus?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“I'll call Dr. Chakwas tomorrow. Talk things out with her.”  
  
“You sure?”  
  
“Yeah,” Shepard sighed. She rubbed her small thumb along Garrus's longer talon. “I'd actually been thinking about seeing what kind of physical therapy could be done by myself, here at home. I just don't want to be bothersome or in the way, and I always feel that way when I'm sick or injured.”  
  
“I'm sure we can make arrangements,” Garrus replied. “Just deal with this one day at a time.”  
  
Jo smiled at him, a genuine smile. She put her half-finished slice of pizza back in the box, and went and put the box in her fridge. “Damn I'm tired,” Shepard said, stretching her arms out in front of herself. “Shoulder's cramping up. You got my back, Vakarian?”  
  
Garrus stood, grasping the handles on the back of the chair before leaning down to rest his forehead where his girlfriend's ponytail would normally have been. “I got your back, Shepard.”


End file.
